Video games, pen&paper RPGs and other nerdery

Media Monday #207: Otherland, MOBAs, E3 squeeing

I was a bad blogger last week and skipped Media Monday. I wanted to post on time yesterday, but my computer wouldn’t boot. When it finally did, I spent most of the evening updating phpbb, which I use to run a forum for my two Pathfinder groups. I also run a Wiki, which I will have to post about another time.

Off we go, however.

I’d love to be a member of the movie or TV show family Bartowski, from Chuck, because for one, Chuck is a loveable nerd, and Ellie seems like a kickass sister to have around. There’s Captain Awesome, who’s even awesome for a gay lady like me. Let’s not forget Stephen Bartowski as crazy scientist dad and Mary Bartowski as super-asskicking tough spy. Yup, it’d have to be them. I’d be the normal one.

The cover of City of Golden Shadow, the first book.

One of my favorite authors is Tad Williams. I regularly re-read his Memory, Sorrow and Thorn trilogy of books and have an Otherland re-read on my to-do list. I know way too few people who have read those books. They’re slow and they’re wordy, but they are utterly fantastic and amazing. It’s a bit like Snow Crash, but way more detailed, and more fantastic. It’s Alice in Wonderland meets Snow Crash meets Neuromancer meets Grimm’s Fairy Tales. I can’t recommend this series more. As a bonus for diversity, the main protagonist is Renie, a South African university teacher, and her sidekick is !Xabbu, a Kalahari bushman.

Yvonne Strahovski played quite a few parts, but I would like to see her back as Sarah Walker, because her story is definitely left unfinished. Basically, this is me saying: GIVE US CHUCK THE TV MOVIE. Ahem. If not, then video-capture her again as in Mass Effect 2 and put her in more games as kickass heroine. I’d play that.

I just can’t couldn’t deal with MOBAs, because I can’t see any of those games be anything but toxic. Aside from MMOs, I don’t really play multiplayer games. I haven’t ever played anything like Team Fortress 2 (which explains my non-existent interest in Overwatch) nor do I ever play multiplayer maps in games like Uncharted or Assassin’s Creed. I messed around with Mass Effect 3 multiplayer for a bit, but honestly, I sucked at it, and thus it was no fun. I am pretty sure I would not be a particularly skilled League of Legends player, and all the stories about its toxic communities have taken care that I will never try. None of my RL friends are playing, so I am out. I haven’t even downloaded Heroes of the Storm because the same rules apply. People will be assholes. Come to think of it, most of Blizzard’s recent games have been big misses for me, because I don’t care for Hearthstone either. I am not the target demographic whatsoever.

Lego Dimensions is almost unsurpassable in coolness, because they even make someone like me consider it, and I don’t play with Legos, nor have I ever tried anything like Skylanders or Infinity. But just look at all the nerdy audiences they’re covering with sets: Portal, Doctor Who, The Simpsons, Back to the Future, etc. Yes, I would get a tiny companion cube like that. Because it’s cool!

Seriously, how cool is Lego Chell with her portal gun?

Would be really cool, if the transporters from the Star Trek universe really existed, because instantaneous travel is my ultimate Sci-Fi dream. Alternatively, let’s live like The Jetsons and just fly everywhere in personal ships.

Video game consoles didn’t use to appeal to me, because I was a happy PC gamer and thought that it fits all my gaming needs. But now, I have changed my mind, ever since I first tried gaming on a PS3. I haven’t bought a single game this Steam sale, because a) I have tons of Steam games and b) I can’t play them while sitting in my Ikea Poäng chair. Yet. I just bought The Last of Us GotY and am super-excited to play it. Speaking of excitement, the following trailer had me squeeing and laughing and grinning all over my face in giddy anticipation. Hell yeah.

Less squeeing, more like awe-inspired watching happened when I saw the following trailer.